Pixma Pro 100 setup problem

[purplehaze]

Came home from work the other day to find the new printer sitting at the back door in the falling snow (whatever happened to a notice on the door knob and pickup at one's convenience?) Anyhow, wrestled it into the house, unpacked it and let it warm up for a few hours. It is too awkward for me to carry up to the second floor myself, so I decided to temporarily set it up in the dining room.

Evening One was spent figuring out how to effect the wireless connection, there being no physical WPS button on my Airport/Time Capsule. Who knew there is a virtual WPS button on the Airport Utility? Grrrr.

Evening Two was spent trying to set up. Ran the setup utility but the print head alignment failed. The Group 2 colours (Cyan, Black, Light Gray and Gray) were not printing at all, except for a bit of Gray. As instructed, I ran the Clean function twice and Deep Clean once. The air holes in the cartridges are unobstructed and I am able to draw ink from the nozzles by touching them with a paper towel. I inserted the print head carefully, and the cartridges too. All the lights are on steady and ink levels showing full. Any idea what the problem is? I have submitted the question to Canon but am impatient to start printing, so I just thought I would throw it out to you.

[Manfred M]

Janis - I would give the printer a once over to ensure that all packing material, tape, etc has been properly removed.

I had a problem with my new printer when I first got it and was able to find that a piece of packing material had slipped out of position into a place where it was hidden from view and was preventing the print head from moving properly. I ended up using a small flashlight to examine the inside of the printer through the various covers to find the problem. Also be careful when putting your hand inside the printer as I got a nasty cut on a sharp piece of metal.

[billtils]

Janis

Thanks for stirring (happily) forgotten memories . I has similar issues when setting up mine a couple of months ago. It's always difficult to advise remotely, but here are a few thoughts:

Set up: I set mine up manually - I had to because I couldn't play the CD. Go to the Canon site and download the latest everything, including the rather extensive User Manual and sing along to it. Doing the manual set up will also reset everything - when I ran the test print it was similar to what you say but perfect after a reset.

Also I had trouble with the print head because I missed a piece of packing - that specific issue probably will not apply to you as it seems it is in place but worth taking it out, checking and replacing. And it's an example of the wisdom of Manfred's words to be certain all the packing materials have been removed.

It's worth the effort - it produces stunning prints and at current offer prices is an absolute bargain.

[DanK]

Hi Janis,

This is hard to diagnose from a distance. However, I suspect that head cleaning is just wasting ink. The head is clean when you install it, so there is no need to waste ink trying to clean away clogs that haven't yet had a chance to form.

What I find particularly puzzling is that some colors do print. That strongly suggests to me some sort of physical problem, nto anything related to installation of the firmware. I agree with Bill and Manfred: I would start by carefully inspecting everything for stray packing, particularly any of piece of the orange tape that you missed.

And I also agree with Bill: it's worth it. That printer produces truly stunning prints. I passed mine on to a relative only because I wanted even larger prints and decided that for a few purposes, I wanted archival inks. (For most purposes, it doesn't matter; I have yet to have to replace a print I made with any of canon's dye-based printers.)

Dan

[purplehaze]

Thanks for the feedback. I had an email from Canon this morning telling me to send the printer back, but tonight I followed your suggestion and checked for packing tape. Didn't see any, but I removed the inks and then the print head and reseated it, and voilà, I just ran the alignment and the eight bars printed. Yippee! I am off to the races!

[Manfred M]

That's great news Janis! Enjoy your new printer!